Fright Night (1985)

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General		Extras
Category	Horror	Theatrical Trailer Biographies-Cast & Crew
Rating
Year Of Production	1985
Running Time	102:12
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Tom Holland
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Chris Sarandon William Ragsdale Amanda Bearse Stephen Geoffreys Roddy McDowall
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$29.95	Music	Brad Fiedel

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Bulgarian Czech Greek Finnish Danish Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This movie is filled with images of 1980s clothing, hair styles and dancing. Careful attention should be paid to the dangerous and frequent use of 80s-style music. If you are offended by such things, please do not watch this film as you may spontaneously combust! You have been warned...
 

    Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) is a big fan of horror movies and always stays up to watch his favourite show, Fright Night. On this particular evening, Charley isn't watching his show, he's trying to make out with his girlfriend Amy Peterson (Amanda Bearse), but not getting very far. Frustrated at his lack of progress, Charley gets angry at Amy and walks over to the window. The tiff is soon over as Amy kisses Charley and begins to undress on his bed. Shocked at Amy's sudden about face, but not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Charley is about to go to her when he sees something out of the corner of his eye. He sees two men carrying a coffin toward the basement entrance of the empty house next door. Amy is now forgotten as he continues to watch the two men. He rushes downstairs to tell his mother what he has seen. She has heard that the house has been sold and that the new owner is supposed to be a handsome man but can offer Charley no further information.

    Life returns to normal for Charley at school the next day, although Amy is not too happy with him for ignoring her! His maths teacher has sprung a surprise test on his class and Charley has no option but to study rather than spend the night with his friends. As he arrives home, a tall sexily-dressed blond woman asks Charley for directions - her destination turns out to be next door. Later that night, Charley is torn from his studies when a blood-curdling scream comes from next door. The following day, he sees a news report on TV about the murder of a woman. Her picture is shown and to his horror, it is the woman he gave directions to the previous afternoon. The news reader also reports that this is one of an increasing number of murders in recent times.

    Now very suspicious of his new neighbours, Charley decides to stay up all night and watch their house from his bedroom. He falls asleep for a while but awakens just in time to see a light go on, a couple appear and begin to kiss. The woman begins to undress and Charley is at first happy to see this but then horrified when the man turns out to be a vampire. He is about to attack the woman when he notices Charley watching through the window, and closes the blind leaving Charley standing there shocked and afraid. He rushes to his mother's room and wakes her, but she is groggy and not very responsive. Charley rushes out of the house and hides in the bushes to watch a man that has just emerged from next door with something heavy wrapped in a large plastic bag. This man dumps the bag in the back of his Jeep and is about to drive off when another man appears from the shadows and throws him a purse. This new man is the one he saw from his bedroom window - the vampire! At this moment, Charley's mother opens the front door and begins calling for him. The vampire realizes that Charley is hiding in the bushes and approaches him. With no other option, Charley reveals himself and runs back to his house and his confused and concerned mother. What will happen to Charley now? Watch the movie and find out.

    I first saw this movie during its cinema release and thought it was very well made and stylish. I was particularly impressed with the performance of Chris Sarandon as the charismatic vampire, Jerry Dandrige. I also thought the performance of Roddy McDowall as the theatrical and good-hearted actor, Peter Vincent, strong and appropriate. Now that I have seen it again, I see a film that is very dated in terms of music, clothing and look but is still a fun horror film with good acting and solid production.

Video

    The sharpness of this transfer is generally good and on a par with other films that I have in my collection from around this period. The majority of this film is set at night which makes shadow detail and black level very important to the story. Fortunately both of these elements are as they should be. There is enough shadow detail for you to see what is important and the black level is deep enough to make the night scenes believable.

    The colours in this film are a little subdued and have a slightly pastel look about them, but nothing to cause any concern.

    MPEG artefacts are limited to minor pixelization in the background of some scenes. It was most noticeable from 12:18 - 12:45 but was not at all distracting. Some fine film grain is noticeable due to the frequent use of smoke to simulate fog and mist, but again there was nothing really to complain about.

    Film-to-video artefacts are essentially absent from this transfer. The most significant example of aliasing I could find was at 11:26-11:30 and it is so minor that it is hardly worth mentioning.

    This is a very clean print! The odd fleck can been seen here and there, but nothing that is even remotely annoying. In summary, Columbia TriStar have done it again. Good work, folks!

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are five audio tracks present on this disc. One is a remastered English Dolby Digital 5.1 track that is encoded at the  highest bit rate of 448 Kb/s. There is also a French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track, a German Dolby Digital 2.0 surround track, an Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track and a Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track. I listened to the English track.

    Dialogue was always clear and audio sync was never a problem except for one short period where Charley's groan was not quite in sync with his mouth. You can find this at 90:56-90:58.

    The score by Brad Fiedel is, for me, only OK as I'm not really a fan of 80s music and this score is definitely from that period. It was no doubt a deliberate decision to use electronic instruments in this score to make it fit with the style of the movie. I guess it works well in this regard.

    The remastered 5.1 soundtrack is very good. The surrounds are frequently used to add ambience, such as at 7:33-8:00 when Charley and Evil leave the class room and walk between buildings. The surrounds are also used for impact such as at 9:20-9:23 when Charley hears a scream coming from next door.  Split surround activity occurs as well. Good examples can be found at 19:15-19:20 when the police car is started and drives off and again at 24:16-24:31 when the vampire lands on Charley's roof and walks around.

    The subwoofer was well-used to support both the score and the action sequences. Examples of its use supporting the action can be found at 14:57-15:07 and again at 24:16-24:23. An example of its use supporting the score can be found at 59:34-63:55.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Biographies-Cast & Crew

Theatrical Trailer

• A full screen, pan and scan version of the film.

• A remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall